Invasion of the Northern Hordes- Part 1

At long last a real blog update...

 

This entry will cover the period from early December 2012 to early January 2013, or about the same period in which David and Teri (Nadia's dad and stepmom) visited Australia for the first time.  It's been so long since they were here that my memory is a little hazy.  Fortunately, between our camera and 3 iPhones, we took thousands of pictures. Of which I will share only a couple hundred with you here (I'm kidding, it's more like several dozens...tops). 

 

 

Greetings at the Perth Airport.  The guy on the left, whoever he is, doesn't seem all that excited for some reason.



 

 

Everyone was very excited and happy to see each other upon arrival.  We were really looking forward to having visitors.  To be honest, it was a little lonely without friends and family around.  So, having some friendly, familiar faces visit was really nice.  The only other visitor we had prior to this was Steven Coniff from Dubai but he was travelling on business and didn't stay with us or for very long.

 

 

Walking the walk: the whole family doing the stroll along the West Coast highway, not too far from our current home and right beside our former home.
 

Walking out on the sandbar at Point Walter in the estuary.  At low tide this sand bar stretches out probably over half a kilometer.  At high tide this sand bar acts as a dinner plate for big fish.  Actually, that's a little bit of hyperbole.  The sharks don't generally come to this part of the river, but instead closer to where people kayak, swim and cliff dive.

Our first dinner together on our deck.  It was actually a little chilly on this particular evening: it may have been around 25 C.

Everyone knows that after dinner you need a nap, right?  I swear that David and I are not actually related.

Getting ready to board the ferry to Rottnest Island, on board the Rottnest SeaFlyte, aka, "The Good Ship Spew".  The seas were a little choppy on the way to Rottnest (about a 45 minute ride).

We stayed for 2 nights on Rottnest Island.  It gets it's name from a little marsupial that is all over the island (and not many other places in the world) that looks like a big rat but in fact is related to kangaroos.  Their actual name is a Quokka and they are quite friendly since they have no natural predators on the island.  They're always looking for a handout or to clean up anything edible that you might have dropped.  Above, that's me grilling dinner (there are free BBQ's all over Western Australia and Rottnest) with a Quokka waiting for me to drop something.  While on Rottnest we did some exploring, lounging at the beach and some snorkelling.  The snorkelling was pretty good but nothing compared to Ningaloo Reef (more below) or the Great Barrier Reef.

While in Western Australia David and Teri took the opportunity to do a little travelling on their own.  They rented a 4WD SUV and headed north towards Monkey Mia, Exmouth and Ningaloo Reef.  Along the way they also went to Kalbarri and several other places.  Their first day on the highway driving north they hit a kangaroo.  This is very common in WA, and as a result, many people have "roo-bars" on their vehicles to protect the engines from impacts with kangaroos.  Fortunately, David and Teri were fine and the vehicle was still operational.  Driving north of Perth you see a lot of dead kangaroos on the side of the road.  They're especially bad around dusk.  They will literally jump out of the bush at full speed right onto the highway.  At first you feel bad for them but considering their shear idiocy you realize that Darwin would have wanted it that way.

The positive parts of the trip was that they got to experience some very good snorkelling and Teri got to feed a wild dolphin in Monkey Mia.  The snorkelling they did included a place called Ningaloo Reef.  It's like the Great Barrier Reef (on the other side of the country) except that it's smaller, less popular and you can walk right into it from the beach.  Many people consider it to be the best snorkelling/diving area in Australia, even better than the Great Barrier Reef.  Monkey Mia is an area where dozens of dolphins live year round.  These wild dolphins are so used to people that they will swim into the shallows to be fed by them.  The naturalists are trying to ween them away from the hand feeding but they still show up almost every day.  Teri was one of the lucky few that was chosen to feed one of the dolphins.

They arrived back into Perth on Xmas eve just in time to pig out.  This is Xmas dinner Australia-style!

Of course, we spent some time at the beach and frolicking in the ocean.  The water was still a little chilly in late December but nonetheless worth it.

Here is David trying out one of our kayaks on the river.  He may not be exerting himself too much but he is on vacation afterall.

While in Perth we took David and Teri to Fremantle Prison.  It's the oldest and largest prison in WA and is now no longer in operation.  This particular picture is the room where inmates were hung.  I'm assuming that the fan is there (on the left of the picture) because they didn't want the doomed prison to get to warm before they hung him to death.  Fremantle is said to be haunted.  So naturally, they made a tourist attraction out of it.  We took the evening tour of the prison where the tour guide and other staff actively try to intimidate you (as if you were a prisoner) and frighten you.  They frighten you by sharing terrible stories from the prison and then have people jump out and try to scare you.

For New Years, we all packed up and made the trip about 3 hours south to Margaret River.  This is the area on the Southwest point of Australia and it's very close to where the Indian and Southern oceans meet.  It's also a little more temperate than Perth and, in general, has cooler, wetter weather.  The area is best known for it's vineyards and wineries.  There are a lot of good wines that come from Margaret River, mostly white.  Generally, the good Australian red wines come from South Australia.  We stayed in Margaret River for 3 nights/4 days and managed to fit in quite a few activities, in between drinking wine.

There is a large surfing community in Margaret River as the waves in this area are quite big.  Here we came to a point overlooking a popular surfing spot and we were able to watch some surfers do their thing.  It was really cool.  We managed to get a picture in with the sunset while there.

Also while in Margaret River we went to a maze.  It was actually quite fun.  We split into three teams and competed to see who could make their way out first.  Zaren and Cyrus won but cheated.  The only problem with this was that it was 40C out and after about half and hour of being in the maze everyone was basically ready to go back to our air conditioned condo.

Another popular activity in Margaret River is caving.  There are several caves in the area to choose from.  It was a good experience and especially nice to be out of the heat for a little while. 

 While in Margaret River we celebrated New Years together.  Although, we were all so tired and worn out from the heat at that point that our celebration consisted of watching TV with a glass of champagne and biding our time to go to bed.

The circle is complete. All good things must come to an end.  Here all of us are saying goodbye at the Perth airport. We really enjoyed having David and Teri with us.

 

 

Next up...6 days after David and Teri leave, Sam and Sonia Klamer arrive.